As the weather heats up, so does the competition for events. With a huge lineup of festivals dropping in Australia’s sunny season, how can you ensure that your event makes the cut for attendees this summer?

To stand out in a crowded market, you need to offer an event that is fresh and will drive serious FOMO (fear of missing out). Read on to uncover three ideas for selling out your event this summer.

1. Tap into fresh trends from the Northern Hemisphere

Remember when we had to wait forever for the hottest TV shows and movies to come to Australia? The internet took care of that. Now we can watch the latest episode of Games of Thrones within hours of the premiere in North America.

This appetite for global entertainment trends can also be applied to events. Thanks to social media, Australians get an instant update of what is hot overseas, and increasingly expect that they will see the same standard of entertainment/fashion/food when summer arrives down under.

With the summer festival season wrapping up in the Northern Hemisphere, now is the perfect time to take a look at what was hot (or not) at recent outdoor festivals. Use online search and social media to research events like yours that took place over the US/UK summer and see what had everyone talking.

Focus on what worked for events in your target demographic, but don’t forget to pay attention to current global and local movements such as:

2. Use the ‘silly season’ to your advantage

We’ve all experienced the social pressures of the ‘silly season’ — with the end of the year looming like a deadline to see every friend, colleague, and family member we have. This could be seen as more competition for your event, or you could use it to your advantage. People want to catch up with their friends over summer, so give them an unforgettable place to do it.

An Eventbrite survey revealed that 48% of Aussie millennials believe that some of their best memories come from an event they attended, and agree that attending events with family and friends deepens their personal relationships. If your event is designed and marketed toward making memories this summer, you could attract larger groups and sell more tickets.

To super-charge your ticket sales, sell directly through social media. This captures people in the same place where they engaged with friends and make plans, encouraging them to purchase sooner and invite a group.

3. Lure older Millennials with family-friendly features

Can you imagine keeping a child entertained for six weeks straight? If you have kids, you’ll already know that this is the reality faced by parents across Australia every year when school breaks for summer. Eager to get their kids away from screens, this is a market seeking outdoor events to attend.

Once upon a time, “family-friendly” meant that kids were catered for, with very little on offer to interest their parents. This is shifting now, as the event-loving Generation Y are having families and want to continue enjoying live experiences they love, with the brood in-tow. Eventbrite research found that more than two thirds (68%) of Aussie Millennials are attending more daytime, family-suitable events on the weekend now than they did five years ago, a trend driven by the older 26-34 year old Millennials (73%).

Why lose loyal attendees as their lives begin to shift? Keep them by catering to the millennial parent market.

You don’t need to invite the chaos of a McDonald’s playground into your event to accommodate younger revelers. There are plenty of simple tweaks that event creators can make to existing adult-focused events to capture the parent market. For example, summer music festival Rainbow Serpent have introduced a Kids Space with music and performance activities for little ones and a dedicated Family Camping zone with reduced noise late at night.

Join the beer festival that has to sample 300+ craft beers and ciders from a selection of NZ's best craft breweries! Plus taste your way around the wares of the best food trucks in town and get down to the sounds of some great live entertainment.

The Great Kiwi Beer Festival is a celebration of the brewing industry in New Zealand, hosted by industry experts.

Attendees will be able to sample brews from diverse locales spanning from Europe to Asia, and the presence of many brewmasters onsite will give patrons the opportunity to interact with the people behind their favourite brands.

With live performance, cooking demonstrations, seminars, brand experience areas, beer and food matching and much more, The Great Kiwi Beer Festival is the ultimate "cheers" to New Zealand's affinity with the great amber nectar.

Lock it in friends: the November with see the Fifth instalment of the Dunedin Craft Beer & Food Festival take over the entire pitch of the Forsyth Barr Stadium.

With tantalising treats that'll appeal to every kind of palate, and entertainment for the young and old - from seminars to bouncy castles to high-quality kiwi music - we reckon it's the highlight of the calendar year!

They are also offering a homebrew competition this year, where you could be the 2017 Dunedin Craft Beer festivals beer of the year :)

Come check out some of New Zealand's best craft breweries in the heart of Queenstown: Garage Project, Tuatara, 8Wired, Panhead, Cargo and many more.

Set in the mighty Queenstown. Who could ask for a better place to have a beer?

Where: Queenstown, New Zealand

When: January

Chow and Tipple

4. Chow and Tipple

The Chow & Tipple is a boutique Food, Beer & Wine Festival based in Cambridge, New Zealand. The inaugural event is set to take place March.

It is one of the latest editions to our Beer Festivals in New Zealand

Where: Cambridge, New Zealand

When: March

Beast of a Feast

5. Beast of a Feast

Beast of a Feast returns in 2018 and this summer's hottest craft beer and food festival in Mount Maunganui! A rockstar lineup of some of New Zealand's best breweries and street food vendors provides the perfect setting for you to acclimatise to a new year! Challenge your mates to a match of table tennis or perhaps meet the brewers behind the beers at ‘The Beer Affair’ tent. Compete for spending credit with competitions throughout the day! Or just sit back and enjoy the entertainment on the big stage!

Beast of a Feast will be held on the 3rd of January at Soper Reserve, Mount Maunganui.

Where: Mt Manganui, New Zealand

When: January

Do you know of any other great Beer Festivals that should be reusable and sustainable with Globelet?

Events and Venues are always trying to reduce cost and make a marginal profit. The margins are so small that most events struggle to find their way through it, and as a result often end up losing money.

Below are 3 ways events can save money, improve their event, and improve the overall experience:

1 Catering

Catering companies offer venues large cash incentives and free machinery investment, but more and more venues are now waking up to the fact that nothing is free.

Why?

Every dollar counts, including money made over the bar from drink and food sales. More importantly fans don’t show up to an event for the music, rugby or event itself - they show up for the experience.

THE EXPERIENCE IS EVERYTHING.

Catering companies make most of their money from the backhanded rebates from food companies. The stadiums outsourced catering sell's a Coca Cola for $6, few people buy it due to the high cost, and then the stadium's catering books show “no money”, but back at the catering company's Head Office Coca Cola just paid a nice fat check for the opportunity to sell its sugar water at the venue. The Catering companies HQ makes a lot of money.

The interest of the catering company is not to make the event experience better, it is to increase margins and make more money.

It is a conflicting interest with the event organizers and venues.

So why do venues outsource their bread and butter to catering companies?

The first reason is the incentives, but beyond money, the main reason is that it removes any risk and blame from the venue organizers. When something goes wrong at the event, (long lines and slow service) the event organizer can blame the catering company.

So what can event’s do?

Bring their catering in-house. It is easier said than done. But if you can find the special someone who has the leadership to make this happen, you will never look back.

Get in contact with someone like, Matthew Lazarus-Hall - Owner of Uncommon cord - he has a wealth of strategic knowledge in the entertainment industry.

It is how the Dairy industry saw Fonterra grow and take out all small milk producer.

It is how the meat industry created 3 big companies and eliminated the hundreds of small processing plants.

In the event industry the big push right now is Alcohol Laws.

It is now seeing many events almost go out of business. This includes racing club's, major venues, festivals, and more.

The worst part - every region has different restrictions and different ideas about intoxication.

So what can you do?

Smart events like Toast Martinborough have hired a new events manager who understood all alcohol compliance in-depth. This means more events need to find managers who have a clear understanding of all the laws and build relationships with the authorities.

Other event organizers are putting $10,000-$20,000 aside for miscellaneous spending towards health and safety type incidents and their lawyers fees.